Fine detail Wood.

[Boyan Silyavski]

I have machined a lot of tiny forms /V cutter/ from Maple and Iroko. Both hold good detail but there are better woods. Nothing holds better detail than Ipe and similar exotic woods, speaking for small parts and details. Pear is the best general wood, as suggested before. All model builders i know of, use pear for the wood details.

I cut all wood at diameter depth and 16.000 RPM the soft woods and 17-18 000 RPM the harder ones 30IPM per flute, hence 60IPM for 2 flute cutter.Same speeds for V cutter. Yes, some may find these conservative but going faster or deeper does not help with fine details at all or wood splits. Smallish distance between cuts must not be less than 1.5mm

The sharper the cutter, the better. Always start with new cutter new job.